Dragon's Flight
by swordboy17
Summary: A dragon wakes from a strange night to discover stumps where wings once were. Liesel, the dragon's nonbinary companion, helps him go on a quest to find his missing wings.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, Dragon, wake up!" Liesel called from the cottage. Dragon stirred. He had been dreaming, but he couldn't remember it. He yawned, then rose and stretched. The pallid moonlight that lit the cave reflected off his silver-blue scales. Sleeping for two weeks in a row was not the most brilliant idea he had ever had. Suddenly, he stopped, body frozen mid-movement. The dragon shivered as pain wracked his body, stemming from small stumps on his back. As the pain faded to a dull throbbing, he pulled himself from the ground and out into the night.

 _Liesel! I need the kit._ Dragon called out to them telepathically. A moment later, after several clangs and crashes sounded from the inside of the house, Liesel stumbled into view. In their hands were several rolls of gauze and some vials, and they set to work cleaning and bandaging the dragon's bleeding stumps. Liesel tended to the wounds as carefully as they could, but the fairy was more accustomed to the indifference of machines. After several tensioned minutes passed in silence, Liesel couldn't avoid the question.

"What happened to you?" they asked, looking concerned. The dragon stood slowly, and with what seemed to take considerable effort on his part, turned to look at his companion.

 _I was dreaming, as one does, and I was woken up by your call. That's all that I can remember._

"That's it? You wake up from a dream and now can't fly anywhere. Great, just in time for us to migrate." They threw their hands into the air and walked back to the cottage. The dragon, conscious of his recent injury, hobbled after the fairy.

 _It isn't my fault that I lost my flight!_ He called to Liesel, though they had entered the cottage. Dragon knew that they were prone to overreacting, so he tried to placate them as much as possible. _We could just go looking for them, and even if we don't find my wings, I can migrate on my feet like the wingless dragons. Hopefully, we'll find my wings in the days before then. Please don't hate me._

Liesel quickly gathered several days supplies, including more vials of medicine. With a final glance at the machine covered workbench, they left the room. After locking the door behind them, Liesel turned, coming face-to-snout with the dragon.

"Well, are we going to get your wings, or not?" they asked with a faint smile. The dragon smiled a toothy grin and started towards the forest. He turned back when the fairy hadn't moved from the doorstep.

 _You know, we don't have all night to get started._

"How do we know which way to go?" they asked, looking confused.

 _I'll explain as we walk._

"Alright. I'm coming." Together, the fairy and dragon began their journey through the forest.


	2. Chapter 2

_Flight for magical creatures is magic-based, and manifests itself in the form of wings. Obviously, the wings help in flight, but the magic does the work. Though my wings were cut off, the magic is still in my body. It mostly manifests itself in flight and my ice-breath, so when one of the two is missing, I notice._

"That doesn't explain why you have been walking confidently in one direction for the past age," Leisel commented.

 _Since my wings had most of the magic, some of it lingers over time. It forms a magical signature of sorts that is distinctly mine. The magic that remains in my wings sort of leaks out over time, and the rest of my magic can sense where it is, forming a clear path of which way to go._

"So we get to where your wings are, and then what?"

 _We take them back and the two parts of my magic will join the wings to my body, and we can fly away._

They were walking in comfortable silence for some time before Leisel tripped over a root, but in all fairness, it was well hidden for a species of trees that grew to over 500 lengths tall. Fairies in general had a knack for mechanics, magical technology, anything that requires stable hands. However, this causes them to be ironically clumsy in general life. Liesel was no different. Dragon laughed. _You could grow a pair of wings and manage to trip mid-flight._

"You know, fairies used to have wings," they commented.

 _Really? What happened?_

"Well," Liesel began their story, "A couple centuries ago, there was a revolution of ideas concerning who was magical. It was decided by the council of beings that species who must migrate north for the summer months were magical. That includes fairies." Dragon nodded, remembering his first migration with Liesel. He had flown with Liesel on his back, and the two of them had gone up to the frozen north. Magical beings had to migrate north, as the heat of the summer hurt their magic.

 _Were fairies different in any other ways?_

"Most had orange or pink hair, and were no more than three feet tall. Obviously that changed, as time went on, so nowadays most are like me, with blue hair and at least five feet to our names." Liesel smiled, being five and a half feet tall.

 _Your hair is beautiful, but you still haven't explained why fairies don't have wings._

"Just be patient," Liesel teased, only to trip on another root. "The fairy's wings drove many other winged creatures mad with hate and jealousy due to the powerful magic harboured within them. This led to a couple of wars and a deep-rooted fear of fairies." Dragon snorted at this. He had known Liesel for years, and other than the tendency to be clumsy and overreact to situations, the fairy was a loyal and trustworthy being, albeit with neon blue spikes for hair.

They glared at him. "Can I finish?" they said. He nodded. "Anyway, a petition was sent to the council to stop the bloodshed on all fronts. It took some time, but the council came to their decision to allow fairies to join the magical community with one condition. To stop the fighting and hatred, all the fairies had to give up the magic in their wings, rendering them flightless."

 _Didn't they long for flight like I do?_ Dragon asked with shock. He hated being stuck on the ground, even for a little while. He was not looking forward to the couple of nights he would be without flight while they searched for his wings, and could not imagine life without them.

"Yes, but they longed for peace more. They sacrificed part, but not all, of what defined them at that time so future generations could be safe."

 _That's pretty selfless._ Dragon was amazed that one being could do this, let alone an entire species! He got so caught up in imagining the conversations that must have happened that he got spooked by an enfield emerging from its den. Enfields are rather harmless fox-eagles, but Dragon was so surprised at its appearance, he leaped into one of aforementioned trees, much to Liesel's amusement. They weren't the only one clumsy on the ground. Unfortunately, Dragon's acrobatics reopened the stumps. They stopped for the night as Liesel re-bandaged the wounds. Dragon turned to look at them and scowled.

 _I cannot wait to have my wings back. These bandages itch, and so does my heart._ Liesel looked at him strangely. _My heart yearns for flight, like all dragons. To fly is to be free from the pains and weariness of the ground. Nothing is more amazing than to feel the air against your scales and hear the beating of your heart and wings as one._ He stopped, realizing that Liesel was asleep against his curled body. With a few ice-forming breaths, a trademark of northern dragons, Dragon constructed an ice hut for the two of them to survive the heat of the day. He hoped that they would find his wings before migration, as the heat of the approaching summer was affecting how well the fairy functioned. Dragon closed his eyes, quietly resting as the sun rose to mark another night over.


End file.
